Psychogenic Illness and Anomalous Phenomena

The subject of Anomalous Phenomena or Forteana has always been one of my favorite topics of discussion. Its something I have been researching and studying for over ten years. I have started a number of threads here on ATS dealing with some of my research.

One of the things that has disturbed me in my years of research, is how often people who experience Anomalous Phenomena break down mentally. Some of the better examples of this are people who have been heavily involved in actual psychic phenomena like the various government funded programs involving the military and intelligence community.

Another area of concern dealing with mental breakdown comes from those who experience close encounters with non human entities. This can be anything from so called alien abductions, visions of the Virgin Mary, or hauntings.

Two very good books dealing with anomalous phenomena: Daimonic Reality: A Field Guide to the Otherworld by Patrick Harpur and The Trickster and the Paranormal by Geroge P. Hansen both somewhat address the human psyche and how it reacts to anomalous phenomena. Similar patterns emerge where the human psyche tries to fit anomalies into boxes. The human psyche does not like to deal with what it cannot name, define, or understand. Therefore when the human psyche encounters anomalous phenomena it often will generate a mythology to make sense of it.

The thing with truly anomalous or Fortean phenomena is that it doesn't like names or definitions. The human mind doesn't really seem to know how to deal with this and hence the breakdowns.

The more I have looked into this, the more I realize just how fragile the human psyche is. For many people sanity is very fragile. We see the effects of how trauma can leave people with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This can disrupt people's lives and even leave one disabled.

Anomalous phenomena can be far more traumatic than what one might define as mundane trauma. In fact it can be so traumatic and disturbing that it seems to not only affect an individual's psyche, but can collectively affect the human psyche.

Psychogenic disease or illness is defined as

a set of symptoms or complaints whose origin likely lies within the complex interactions of the frontal lobes of the brain and the system in which the complaint manifests

.
Normally there arn't any brain tissue abnormalities or any associations with infections, toxins, etc. This means there is something happening that cannot be physically detected or studied. This in itself is anomalous.

Exposure to anomalous phenomena seems to result in a psychogenic disorder, especially chronic exposure. High level strangeness or what one might call an extreme "Oz factor" tends to have even more bizarre results. This seems to be able to produce MPI or mass psychogenic illness.

Mass psychogenic illness is often defined as mass hysteria. This phenomena by itself is fairly anomalous. When most people think of hysteria, they think of an individual mental disorder. MPI on the other hand operates in a manner we do not understand. A person affected with MPI can act as a vector and transmit MPI. The method of this transmission is not understood, but it can move through a human population just like an epidemic. There arn't any physical indicators and it can be transmitted without physical contact.

The behaviors resulting from it can be quite bizarre. In the 1960s a form of mass psychogenic illness broke out in Tanzania, resulting in thousands of people having attacks of uncontrollable crying and laughing.

During the middle ages, especially during the Black Plague, there were outbreaks of what is known as dancing mania. One of the most famous cases occurred in 1518 in Germany where numerous people uncontrollably writhed and twisted almost as if dancing. They would continue to writhe and twist to the point of exhaustion and even death. The Catholic Church at the time thought the manias were demonic in origin. They tried with no success at exorcising the "dancers".

Similar behaviors can be seen among mediums who are possessed/channeled Loa from Vodou and among Pentecostals claiming to be possessed by the Holy Spirit of Christianity. The behavior among the mediums of Vodou is individual while behavior in Pentecostal revivals is more indicitive of a mass psychogenic event.

The 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, which heralded the birth of the Pentecostal movement, exhibited many of the indicators of forms of MPI. These include jerking, dancing, laughing, crying, passing out and glossolalia.

The method of transmission in these types of events is anomalous and there arn't any physical indicators such as brain abnormalities. This has lead me to conclude that something more is going on.

The anomalous transmission seems to indicate to me that it may have what one may call a spiritual or psychic nature. It also seems to indicate to me that the human psyche has some kind if collective nature. Its almost as if the human psyche is being assaulted by an "outside" force.

What I would personally like to know, is if the Pineal gland plays a role in all of this? People affected collectively seem to operate in altered state of consciousness. If the pineal gland does play a role, what happens to people whose pineal gland calcified? Even more disturbing is the aspect of fluoride in public water that seems to lead to the pineal gland's calcification. I would assume that people whose pineal gland had calcified could have complications in regards to altered states of consciousness. It may even mean those people may experience less anomalous phenomena and psychogenic disorders. In essence it may be blinding the mind's eye or "third eye" of these people.

Regardless of the questions dealing with the pineal gland or fluoride, anomalous phenomena must be approached with caution. It can be overwhelming to our fragile psyche and the paradigm shift that can result can literally drive one insane.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

Adding some sources for information and some more comments:

Dancing death
news.bbc.co.uk...

'Dancing Plague' and Other Odd Afflictions Explained
dsc.discovery.com...

Protean nature of mass sociogenic illness
bjp.rcpsych.org...

An Epidemic of Laughing in the Bukoba District of Tanganyika
rltz.blogspot.com...

Why are 600 girls in Mexico suffering from collective hysteria?
health.howstuffworks.com...

Mass hysteria hits Malaysian school
findarticles.com...


One other really bizarre mass psychogenic event I didn't go into was also during the Black Plague, this involved people that were known as Flagellants and performed extreme acts of self mutilation known as mortification of the flesh. They claimed they would purify the world through a baptism of blood and even performed actual baptisms of blood.

Like the dancing mania, it was reported to spread like an epidemic of disease. In addition to the self mutilation, those who did not join the maniacal mob when it would process through an area would be killed by the flagellants.

Eventually the phenomena began to slow down and the Inquisition finished off the rest, burning hundreds of flagellants.

Like the other forms of MPI there seem to be indications that the people would enter an altered state of consciousneess or trance like state.

Flagellants
www.newadvent.org...

The time of the Black Plague is filled with reports of Fortean phenomena, including lights in the skies to sightings of dark figures that became known as grim reapers. (compare to the medieval "Black Man", shadow people, and men in black sightings)

One of my biggest worries, with modern information networks, is if something fortean and truly huge makes its presence known. I fear that most people may literally descend into madness.

With some people clamoring for 2012 and Terence McKenna's timewave ideas, people may have no idea what nightmarish pandora's box could be opened on the world. While some people expect ascension and other such positive concepts, the truth is that any mass revelation by anomalous phenomena would shock the human psyche into a collective psychogenic pandemic.



[edit on 18/6/09 by MikeboydUS]

Very interesting...laughing out loud, maniacally!

No, I think the "escahton" involves oneness, and that any sort of universal conscious awareness, is simply an awareness of the oneness of all being, and that if anything, we are coming into an understanding of the true nature of love, not as a feeling, but as some sort of universal connecting principal.

That said, when entering into a dramatic psychic paradigm shift, synchronicities and other strange things are sure to start happening. We may even re-enter an age of miracles, as have been documented over the centuries, but which petered off during the 20th century, as people lost belief in these things.

I highly recommend the book "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot, which offers a very tantalizing theory as to the how and why of such things.